I am a leadership advisor to Fortune 500 CEOs and Boards, author of "Hacking Leadership" (Wiley) and "Leadership Matters" (2007), the Chairman at N2Growth, a member of the board of directors at the Gordian Institute and recognized by Thinkers50 as one of the top leadership thinkers globally. I am also a syndicated columnist and contributing editor on topics of leadership, innovation and problem solving. I have been married for nearly 30 years and am a proud father and grandfather.

The Fastest Way to Kill Corporate Culture

Allowing gossip in the workplace is like encouraging your employees to swim with sharks. Let me cut right to the chase – real leaders don’t participate in gossip, and likewise they don’t tolerate gossip from others. Gossip destroys trust, assails credibility, and is one of the greatest adversaries of a healthy corporate culture. The emotional distress and political discord associated with gossip undermines workplace performance, and can be nothing short of disastrous. In the text that follows I’ll share my thoughts on how to control gossip in the workplace…

My question for leaders is this: do you want to create a culture of doubt or a culture of leadership? If what you desire is to have a healthy, thriving, and productive company, it is essential that you curtail office gossip. Gossip is one of the most divisive undercurrents pervading business today. Gossip allows for the unnecessary dispersion of negative innuendo for the pleasure of a few, and to the detriment of many. Show me a person that participates in gossip and I’ll show you someone who cannot be trusted. People who participate in gossip often times view their activity as being politically savvy when in fact gossip is the tool of insecure, rank amateurs.

It’s actually been trendy of late to take the position that participating in gossip affords opportunities to gather business intelligence, build relationships, etc. While these theories make for nice soundbites, they are at best a big stretch. In reality, they do little more than constitute more rhetoric attempting to rationalize and justify poor character. If you have to participate in gossip to feel plugged-in, liked, or informed, then your leadership ability is woefully lacking.

I’ve written often on the importance of building solid relationships through displaying a consistency of character, creating a bond of trust, making good decisions, and striving to help others succeed. When you take part in gossip you do none of these things. In fact, gossip seriously undermines each one of the aforementioned success metrics by propagating inaccurate information. At its core, gossip is the highest form of disloyalty, and it is far from innocent or idle. Nothing can claim more tainted professional reputations, destroyed friendships, and polluted corporate cultures than gossip.

The best definition I’ve found for gossip is: “talking about a situation with somebody who is neither a part of the solution or a part of the problem.” If you have a problem with a person, or take exception to a particular situation, go directly to the source. There are few things in life I loathe as much as those that don’t have the courage and integrity to hit things head on. If I have a problem with someone I give them the courtesy and respect of addressing the issue with them in private. Talking to anyone else wouldn’t resolve the issue, it would merely be self serving indulgence at someone else’s expense. In fact, it is my opinion that the worst form of gossip is often conducted under the guise of seeking advice or counsel. If you need to seek the wisdom of a third party prior to addressing the root issue, do it generically and anonymously so as not to impugn the character of another.

To be clear, I’m not recommending the stifling of healthy discourse. I have nothing against forms of communication that are good natured, inspiring, impassioned, productive, healthy, educational, informational, effective, etc. Most organizations have a history, and with history comes the mystique of folklore and legend. Every culture has stories to be told, heroes to be adored, villains to be chastened, and a variety of characters to acknowledged. The key is the intention behind the communication – is it meant to help or hurt, to advance or undermine, to build up or tear down? Gossip is simply not to be confused with other forms of communication – they are not one in the same.

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Although I heartily agree with your approach towards gossip, many work in corporations that are riddled with gossip and have to live with it as a given. Some use gossip to informally sound out the information landscape.

This is an essential and natural part of all organisations which is very different from the organogram or plan of organisation.

You can get a feel of how things work by doing the following exercise and, even better, by doing it with a trusted work colleague and pooling the results.

Take the organogram and remove all the lines. Now connect each person with lines valued in proportion to how much regard they have for each other. Say, values 1 to 5. 1 for no regard, 3 for, say, sometimes lunch together and same golf club through to 5 for, say, in a relationship or aunt / niece (for example).

Now, add up the value of all the lines going into each person and you will get a measure of how much each person is meshed to and driving the corporate culture.

Interesting patterns of strong relationships will reveal possible alliances. If you are lucky enough to have the input of a colleague, together, you could reveal what would have been impossible for one observer or particpant to discover on their own.

Gossips try to feel and seek out this landscape but fail to do it systematically. If you take a bit of time and analyse the results, it could give you a whole new perspective on work relationships and how to successfully navigate your way through the reality of gossip and informal influence to gain better work results.

Gossip is often an unpleasant affair… finding a way to live with it without it getting under you skin could be a major plus.

I appreciate your points and understand this is the commonly held belief among most leadership teams. That is why I believe it must be addressed rather than ignored – ignorance isn’t always bliss:). Things don’t change until someone changes them, excuses will be tolerated as long as they’re accepted, and personal accountability will slide until it is required. From my perspective, condoning gossip as acceptable dialog, no matter what the justification, is poor leadership. That said, thanks for sharing your observations.

I strongly agree with your approach towards gossip. The suggestion was not to condone such activity but to find a way of living with it, hopefully, to eventually eradicate it.

The informal information landscape will always be a reality in organisations; it need not be a product of gossip. It can be hugely positive, especially when dealing with difficult interdepartmental issues that so often create friction where the formal plan of organsation can create barriers rather than assist solutions.

In an ideal arrangement assuming experience and technical competence, the standing of an individual in the information landscape should match their standing in the organisation. Information should match ‘authority’ producing empowerment.

The Information Landscape is alongside the formal organisation, it can and should act to bolster up rather than weaken. It can provide vital information to empower .

This is a hardline stance, and I don’t think anyone is capable of avoiding gossip for the rest of their lives, but I completely agree with the article.

I think the most important kind of gossip to avoid is “triangles,” wherein you talk about someone you both know and work with. It causes constant conflict as everyone postures and scuttles around. Some people learned to behave this way within their families–playing mom and dad against each other, for example.

The second worst is slutty gossip (I’m making up these terms, but I think you get my meaning), where you gossip about everyone to everyone.

Curtailing gossip in conversation is fairly easy–you just don’t engage, or cut it off with something like “I don’t feel comfortable talking about XXX while they’re not here.” Warning: you’ll lose friends who have nothing to talk about but gossip. It’s worth it.

In a work environment, you can turn the complaint into an opportunity to brainstorm solutions.

I would ask you to address your own statement as you consider the link between gossip and culture. You said: “Gossip is certainly an unhealthy element in a workplace…” Any unhealthy undercurrent allowed to exist, often unchecked, will have an adverse impact on culture. I have personally witnessed gossip chase away good talent, inhibit productive acts, and cause great tension among the ranks. Healthy cultures thrive on trust not suspicion. I hope these thoughts help.

I have absolutely seen malicious gossip lead to overall tension and negativity- resulting the the loss of good talent, disintegration of teams, and loss of productivity. Mike, I’m glad you are putting his out there so that leaders will start to recognize that this can be extremely destructive to the culture of an organization and should not be tolerated at any level.